


Last Ones Out

by hereforwords



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Uchiha Sasuke, Pining, Sasuke bakes in this because why not, Specifically the ending, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also works the mission desk because why not!!!!, just want him to rest ever lmao, naruto and sasuke are both very specific kinds of clowns in this, quarantine has me wanting even softer endings what can i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforwords/pseuds/hereforwords
Summary: Sasuke just stood there, wondering what expression he was making, numb all over with a distant ringing in his ears. It was only when they were pulling away from each other and Hinata turned and met his eye that Sasuke finally remembered himself and looked down, forcing himself to stop standing so stiffly.(Naruto and Hinata start dating. Naruto and Sasuke try and fail to be okay with it.)
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 52
Kudos: 351





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me starting this fic: just write some fun jealous sasuke you could finish that quick 
> 
> me now looking at my longest finished fic to date: huh

Sasuke hadn't known what to expect, coming back to the village after so long, but quietly he'd let himself anticipate change. He hadn't let himself put the idea into words inside, to even really look at it at all, but it had felt impossible to expect anything else given all that had happened. Instead life had decided to show him yet again just what a fool he could be. 

It was almost funny, the way that something so awful you weren't sure how to breathe around it could still pull your mouth up at the corners. 

But even then it was fine, Sasuke had decided it was okay, that he was okay. They'd saved the world after all, though he'd hindered more than helped too many times to count. In Naruto's eyes they'd done it together, so if only in the quiet of his own mind Sasuke let himself believe the same. Not everyone knew the truth and nothing had ended up remotely close to the way he wanted, but it was okay. 

Naruto was still out there, living and breathing and brighter than anyone else, and Sasuke had decided that was enough.

His first few weeks back in the village had been strained, but not nearly as much as Sasuke had anticipated. Three months had passed now and from the way most people treated him you never would have known he'd left at all, let alone all the harm he'd caused. Sasuke knew it was because of Naruto. He was their hero who had wanted to bring Sasuke home for years, so of course the villagers smiled when they saw Sasuke now. Even knowing it wasn't real Sasuke felt himself relax to it more each time, such a slow feeling that it snuck up on him before he could recognize it for what it was. 

Once or twice now he'd even attempted a smile back, but only when Naruto had been there to see him do it, his own smile threatening to split his face in two whenever Sasuke dared to try. But even then, twisting up inside each day knowing that he had sentenced himself to a lifetime of suffering in silence, even then he'd been okay. Sasuke hadn't been able to just exist in such a long time, it almost felt like a luxury to have anything to feel embarrassed about now at all. 

But looking down the road Sasuke found himself wondering if he really was okay, if any of this was. Genuine doubt struck him for the first time since coming back and Sasuke had to lock his legs, counting his breaths for a moment, knowing that he needed to move, that any moment they could both turn and see him but he just stood there, blinking like it was the only thing he could do.

It was Naruto and Hinata, leaning in close together just outside of a restaurant. But that wasn't what had dread twisting up Sasuke's insides, it was when his eyes moved down from their smiling flushed faces to their hands. They were held together, not simply wrapped around each other but with their fingers interlocked, and when Sasuke really focused he could see Naruto's thumb rubbing her hand softly. 

It was only when his vision started to blur, eyes burning that Sasuke finally moved, spinning around and walking away, forcing himself to keep an even pace when all he really wanted to do was run. He didn't want to go back to his empty apartment, but Sasuke didn't know who he could stand to let himself be around when he was like this besides the one person he was trying to get away from. 

Well, there was someone.

Sasuke didn't know if he would end up regretting it but found himself turning towards the hospital anyway. If anyone would have actual answers about this it would be Sakura, and facts would be worth any discomfort the conversation brought him. He didn't know how he would begin to bring it up when things between them were still so strained at times, but maybe this would be one of the rare days when things between them were almost easy. Maybe for once Sasuke would manage not to say something that made her give him a flash of a look that made it clear some part of her wished he'd never come back at all. 

Or maybe he just wished she would finally look at him that way.

The hospital building was on him before he was ready but Sasuke walked inside all the same, going up to Sakura's usual floor and hoping to find her without having to actually talk to anyone. For once luck was on his side and the third hallway he turned down Sasuke found her, leaned back against the wall looking down at the file in her hands. 

"Sakura," Sasuke said as he walked up, stopping a few paces away.

"Sasuke," she said when she raised her head, the surprise in her voice clear. After only a moment her expression turned worried and she took a step towards him. "What happened? Did Naruto get hurt?"

"What?" Sasuked asked, completely thrown. "No, why would you think that?"

"Oh." Sakura looked embarrassed suddenly, glancing down between them for a moment. "You look upset, I guess I just assumed."

Sasuke let out a long breath, wondering if he was this transparent to everyone or if Sakura really just knew him that well. "Naruto's fine, I just saw him."

"Did something happen?" Sakura asked, that note of worry still there in her voice.

Sasuke opened his mouth but now that he was suddenly faced with actually saying the words he found them close to impossible. After what she'd just said saying anything at all now would completely expose him. He couldn't ask. "Did you know about him and Hinata?"

"Him and Hinata? What, you mean their date?"

Date. 

Date.

_ Date. _

"Oh Sasuke," Sakura said quietly when he didn't say a word, "I didn't–"

"Don't," Sasuke cut in, forcing himself to continue when he saw the look on her face, "It's nothing, I just wanted to know."

Sakura looked at him for a long moment. "Did Naruto tell you?"

Sasuke shook his head, looking down at the ground. "No. He didn't."

"Do you want–"

"I've gotta go," Sasuke said, already moving away and still unable to meet her eyes, "I–" But there was nothing, so Sasuke shook his head and turned away, leaving the hallway altogether. 

Sakura didn't call out after him, and Sasuke couldn't be surprised.

*

Naruto actually looked slightly out of breath, which was good because Sasuke was still only going by sheer force of will. 

"Damn Sasuke, what crawled up your ass?"

Sasuke didn't bother to respond for a moment, bringing his shirt up to wipe the sweat from his face. "You know you're the only one I can actually train with."

"Still," Naruto said with a put on expression of pain, rubbing his side, "You didn't have to kick me so hard."

Sasuke gestured to the bruise he could feel setting in along his jaw and turned to start walking out of the training ground. Naruto ran up to walk next to him, his breath already back to normal, the light flush in his face the only indication he'd exerted himself at all. Sasuke looked at him until Naruto raised his eyebrow and then looked away, still not saying a word. 

All at once the silence between them went strained, and Sasuke couldn't even tell if it was just him or not. He'd managed to keep it together so far, but it was easy to act unaffected by Naruto when they were fighting, he had years of practice behind him. Conversation between them still needed work, something he had to try for each and every time and Sasuke just didn't have it in him to try now. He didn't want to hear about what had happened in Naruto's life in the days since they'd last spoken, all but praying for Naruto not to bring it up at all. 

So of course something much worse happened. 

They turned a corner and suddenly she was there, obviously waiting for Naruto. Sasuke knew the way he jerked to a stop must have looked unnatural, but it was the only safe reaction he could have. Not reacting at all was impossible against the feeling building up beneath his ribs. 

"Hey," Naruto said, so obviously happy Sasuke wanted to die, "I didn't know you would be here."

That was something at least, though it could hardly even be called a crumb when Naruto walked past him and hugged her. Sasuke just stood there, wondering what expression he was making, numb all over with a distant ringing in his ears. It was only when they were pulling away from each other and Hinata turned and met his eye that Sasuke finally remembered himself and looked down, forcing himself to stop standing so stiffly. 

"Hello Sasuke," she said, her voice as irritatingly soft as it had always been. It didn't matter that this was the first moment he could remember hating it so much. 

He made a sound that could hardly be called a greeting, turning his glare to the back of Naruto's head. It was okay for him to be irritated, a friend would be irritated not knowing about this, right? And he didn't know. Naruto had no reason to believe that he knew. All at once Sasuke realized he didn't understand why Naruto hadn't told him, panic suddenly seizing him all over because maybe Naruto  _ knew,  _ maybe Sasuke wasn't as good at hiding this as he thought, maybe Naruto knew and could hardly bother to be around him anymore, maybe he finally regretted everything.

When Naruto turned to look at him Sasuke could feel the exact expression on his face, and knew that he didn't want Naruto to see it. But it was like he'd forgotten how to look away. Even knowing it wasn't true it almost felt like this was the last moment he had to really look at Naruto. Everything would be different now. It wouldn't be him and Naruto at all anymore. 

Sasuke didn't know what that left him with. 

"Hey, so–"

"I'm gonna go ice my jaw." Sasuke could hear how brittle and angry he sounded, but it really wasn't all that different from how he sounded all the time. Sasuke glanced at Hinata, an ugly feeling rising up inside of him that he hadn't felt in so long Sasuke turned away immediately, suddenly something close to terrified. 

"Sasuke?" 

The curious worry in Naruto's voice only made Sasuke feel worse and he started walking away. "I'm tired, I'll see you later," he said without turning, silently begging it to be enough. He couldn't deal with Naruto pushing him right now, not when he already felt so unsteady.

"Hey, I–" 

Naruto's voice fell off, but Sasuke didn't let himself turn to see what had made it happen. Instead Sasuke walked until he reached his apartment, going straight to his room and collapsing back onto his bed. He didn't move for the rest of the day, watching the ceiling with unseeing eyes, somehow more lost than he'd ever been. 

Sasuke had never lost someone this way before, with them alive and still happy day after day before his eyes. Even with all the wrong he'd done in his life somehow Sasuke had never felt closer to dirt than he did in this moment, all because he couldn't be happy. He would have given anything to just be happy for Naruto, but there was only bitterness twisted up in a strange jealousy Sasuke didn't know how to look at too closely.

All Sasuke knew was that he wasn't happy for Naruto. He just wasn't.

*

From the moment he heard the knock at his door Sasuke suspected who it was, but he still couldn't hold back a grimace when he opened his door to find Kakashi on the other side. "How do you still have time to harass me? Don't you have a village to run?"

"It's good to see you too Sasuke," Kakashi said as he walked in, his voice irritatingly pleasant. 

Sasuke slammed the door shut. "What do you want?" 

Kakashi didn't say anything, just like Sasuke knew he would. They both already knew why he was here anyway, Sasuke just had no desire to talk about it. If he'd been good at his job Kakashi would have been pleased.

"I'm denying your application."

For some reason Sasuke was surprised, even though he knew he had no right to the feeling. But there were only so many options for him to take, paths left that he could walk. Kakashi should have at least understood that much. "Why?"

"Why do you want to? You've never shown an interest in ANBU before."

Sasuke finally turned to look at him, knowing it was pointless. "I'm not doing anything here, it's a waste."

"Existing isn't a waste."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, exhausted of this conversation already. "We're ninja. I shouldn't be just existing, I'm supposed to fight." What little of Kakashi's face Sasuke could see looked something close to upset, and Sasuke only found himself getting angrier. "Don't look at me like that. There's nothing wrong with me wanting to do my fucking job."

Kakashi just kept watching him, and both of them knew exactly what he was thinking of. Sasuke wished he'd never let himself open up to Kakashi all those weeks ago. 

_ "What good has any of my fighting done? It all feels so pointless now looking back, just an endless wave of violence." _

"This isn't the same," Sasuke snapped, furious at the flush he could feel at the back of his neck. "I would be fighting for the village, isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

"Even so, my answer isn't changing."

"Then send me out on a different mission," Sasuke insisted, hearing just how desperate he sounded and unable to stop it. "Just give me something to do."

Kakashi just looked at him for a long moment before his eye curled up. "I have the perfect project for you."

*

Sasuke should have known. 

He couldn't believe he'd actually let himself consider the possibility that Kakashi would give him anything worthwhile to do, but this was almost too much. He was so overqualified it felt insulting to everyone involved, but Sasuke sat behind the mission desk all the same, accepting reports with a blank face to counter everyone's shock when they walked up and saw him. A few people even thought it was all just a joke.

Iruka walked up towards the end of his shift, an uneasy sort of smile on his face. "I'm here to relieve you." 

Sasuke pushed himself up from the desk, stretching for a moment. 

"How's Naruto?" Iruka asked before Sasuke could walk away. "He's so busy I've hardly seen him lately."

"I'm sure he's fine," Sasuke said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice and knowing that he'd failed. It had been three days since he'd seen Naruto and left him standing there with Hinata, and Sasuke hadn't seen him since.

Maybe Naruto really didn't care the way Sasuke had always thought. Maybe he never had at all, and Sasuke had only seen what he'd been desperate to find looking back at him all those times. Maybe it was all nothing. More likely than not Naruto probably didn't even know there was a problem between them now, it wasn't like Sasuke abruptly leaving was anything new between them. A few weeks ago he'd left in the middle of having lunch with Naruto and Naruto hadn't even brought it up the next time they saw each other.

Maybe Naruto wasn't the problem at all.

"He's even too busy for you? Kakashi needs to cut him a break."

"It's not Kakashi," Sasuke said before he could stop himself, knowing he couldn't leave it at that when he saw the way Iruka was looking at him. "He got a girlfriend."

The words felt like ash in his mouth, and Sasuke didn't have it in him to keep the grimace from his face as he said them. Iruka could think whatever he wanted. 

"Oh," Iruka said with a weird quality to his voice that Sasuke couldn't place. "That's nice, I suppose."

"You suppose?" Sasuke asked before he could stop himself.

"Who is it?" Iruka asked instead. 

"Hyuga."

"She did always seem to have a thing for him," Iruka said somewhat absentmindedly before turning a smile on him. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, Naruto's never dated anyone before. I doubt it will last."

Sasuke had too many questions all at once to focus on a single one, so what ended up coming out was a mess from start to finish. "Why would I care? What did–did Kakashi tell you to talk to me?"

Iruka raised an eyebrow and all at once Sasuke realized what a paranoid disaster he sounded like, so painfully obvious it was almost sad. 

"No," Iruka said simply, "he didn't."

"Sorry," Sasuke said, that one word in itself the biggest red flag of them all. He couldn't remember the last time he'd casually apologized for something, to anyone. "I'm tired. I'm just–" And then he was walking away, hardly letting himself take a brief glimpse of Iruka's expression.

Leaving only made everything that much worse, but Iruka had known him since he was a child. It was impossible he didn't already know what a mess Sasuke was.

*

Sasuke hated every time he let himself come here, but he'd found himself doing it more and more lately. The view was nice, and no one bothered him when he was up here, but Sasuke couldn't even pretend to himself that was the real reason why. Like everything else lately, it was all about him.

It wouldn't be that long until Naruto's face was up here with all the rest, Sasuke just hoped they managed to capture his expression a bit better than all the others. There was something so off about their faces up there, cold and out of place, unnatural. Then again, none of them were smiling so it would likely never look like Naruto to Sasuke, regardless of the actual research. Something inside of him never wanted to have to see Naruto's face up there at all, frozen in time as some warped reflection of himself.

Sasuke just didn't want Naruto to live on so misshapen, hard and cold when no one had ever been further from.

There was a chill over his skin now, the sun just barely set but for a moment Sasuke couldn't bring himself to move. He didn't want to go back to his empty apartment that after all these months still didn't really feel like his own. His real home had been flattened, the area cleared now but Sasuke still saw nothing but broken wood and rubble when he looked, dust still lingering on the air. He couldn't even say if he wished it was still there, but maybe he just didn't want to lie.

Sasuke would have liked to say he didn't jump when Naruto appeared next to him, sitting down like they met up here on the rocks all the time. Sasuke couldn't help but wonder if he'd been as alone as he thought all the times he'd been here before. He waited, expecting Naruto to start the conversation the way he always did, but no words came. When Sasuke finally turned to look Naruto had a far off expression on his face, almost wistful, so close to sadness Sasuke wasn't sure what to do with it for a moment. But he had to do something. 

"Hey." It took everything he had not to roll his eyes at himself. 

A just barely there smile, a flash of blue turned his way. "You took my spot."

"Your name's not on it anymore."

Naruto laughed but it was a quiet thing. Sasuke couldn't stand it. After the week he'd had, what did it matter if he made a fool of himself one more time? "Are you okay?"

"Me?" Naruto finally turned to look at him, his surprise turning to a genuine smile. "Yeah I'm–it's nothing. Besides, that's what I came up here to ask you."

"I'm fine."

"Sasuke."

"What?" Sasuke looked down. "I am."

Naruto sounded so tired. "I don't know why you still feel like you have to lie to me."

"It's not like you tell me everything either," Sasuke said before he could stop himself. "Not even close."

Naruto just blinked at him, clearly lost. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"How's Hinata?" Sasuke snapped, his glare turning weak right away, exposing everything. 

"Fine." Naruto swallowed, his expression flickering for a moment. "Listen, I wasn't trying to not tell you, it just–" 

Sasuke couldn't begin to understand what Naruto was struggling with, the only option that made any sense not an option at all. Sasuke was so angry it was hard to breathe around it, even if it wasn't really anger at all. It was ridiculous that he could miss something he'd never had this much, miss Naruto like it was the only thing he could feel when Naruto was still right there beside him. 

He was right there, but somehow Sasuke had never felt like they were further apart.

"Just what?" Sasuke finally asked when Naruto made no move to continue, whatever sliver of patience he'd found gone.

"I don't know. I don't know, okay?" Naruto actually looked nervous, not even looking back at Sasuke anymore. "Don't sit there and act like you're an easy person to talk to."

"That never mattered to you before." Sasuke tried to keep the pain from his voice but knew he'd failed when he saw the way Naruto's shoulders tensed up. "Don't. Nevermind I–it's fine. I already knew before the other day anyway, it doesn't matter." 

"What do you mean?"

"I saw you two out the other night, it's not a big deal."

Naruto's voice was too quiet. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I wasn't trying not to, it just–" Sasuke purposely broke off, giving Naruto a pointed look before rolling his eyes.

"Ass," Naruto said quietly, but it was as fond as it always was. 

Sasuke swallowed back the acid in his throat. "So how's that going then?"

"Fine?" Naruto looked like he didn't know at all. "I mean, she seems happy."

_ You don't seem happy. _

"That's good."

"Yeah. Yeah."

Sasuke couldn't remember the last time a conversation between them had felt so awkward. He knew why he was being the way he was, but the longer it went on Sasuke understood the look on Naruto's face less and less. What reason did he have to be worried like this? What could Naruto of all people possibly be anxious to say?

"So ANBU."

Oh.

Sasuke let out a long sigh, feeling so much older than he was. "I really can't stand Kakashi."

"Sasuke."

Sasuke braced himself and looked over again, still unprepared for what he found waiting for him. "What," he said quietly, somehow not really a question at all. 

"Are you still that unhappy here?"

Only Naruto would ever ask him something like that. Sasuke wished he could remember how to hate him for it, that he'd ever figured it out at all. "I just need to do something."

"So take a normal mission then."

"And then what about when that ends? Take another one? What about after that? And after that? It all just seems so pointless."

"And how would joining the ANBU be any different?"

There was nothing he could say that wouldn't break Naruto's expression apart. Sasuke just shook his head, looking up at the now star dotted sky. Night had fallen without him noticing at all. "I guess I don't really know what I'm doing anymore."

"I never know what I'm doing."

Sasuke felt his face go soft, giving in and letting himself look over to take in Naruto looking up at the stars. "But you have dreams, goals, an entire future waiting for you."

Naruto looked back at him before turning to face Sasuke completely. Sasuke felt just as exposed as he always did when Naruto put all of his focus on him, clinging to the false belief that the way he felt was small enough to be hidden away. The way Naruto made him feel was the brightest thing inside of him, so all consuming Sasuke wanted to say the words even now, even knowing they would ruin it all. Everything between them still felt so painfully breakable, fragile despite the years and battles between them. Or maybe that was exactly why.

"I can only want it because you're here again. Even though I never stopped saying it, I knew I would never try to be Hokage if you weren't here to see me do it."

He wanted to tell Naruto that he felt just the same, that Naruto was the entire reason Sasuke was here at all, in the village or anywhere at all, but he couldn't find the words. Sasuke knew that he never would. Feeling his eyes begin to sting Sasuke turned towards Naruto and leaned forward before he could think anything else, wrapping himself around Naruto in a hug that felt like too much and nowhere near enough. When Naruto's hands came to rest along his back Sasuke couldn't hold in the way he trembled for a moment, overwhelmed and shaken.

Sasuke clung to Naruto for a moment more before he made himself pull away, unable to even meet Naruto's eye as he did. But Naruto didn't let him pull away completely, a hand moving to stay on Sasuke's shoulder and hold him near. It felt too warm, realer than any other person's touch had ever been.

"Listen, I don't really know the right way to say this, but you should use this time. You're so–I know that if you found something to be passionate about you would be better at it than anyone. And you could do anything."

If Sasuke had been anything but himself he would have smiled, maybe even pulled Naruto back to him, but just like always he was inescapably himself. Instead he just forced himself to nod, throat too tight to speak. Naruto's hand stayed on his shoulder for a moment more before falling away, and then they just sat together in the silence, watching the ever brightening stars fill up the sky above them. His hands and feet were close to numb from the cold by the time Naruto finally said they should head back. 

It still felt like too soon. 

The walk back felt impossibly long and like it happened to someone else all together, Sasuke left drowning in his own thoughts up in the clouds. And then he was pushing open the door to his empty apartment, alone again.

It was just another day after all. Sasuke had always had worse.

*

Sakura found him standing in the market a few days later, looking down at a packet of yeast in his hands. 

"What's this?" she asked as he walked over to stand next to him. "I didn't know you baked."

"I don't."  _ My mother did.  _

"What are you gonna make?" Sakura asked regardless, like there was nothing strange at all about him doing this. But maybe there wasn't. Maybe it only felt that way to him. 

"Bread."

She let out something of an exasperated sigh. "Of course you wouldn't pick something easy to make."

"Is it that hard?"

Sakura shrugged. "I wouldn't know, but I don't know anyone who eats it that bothers to make it either."

Sasuke made a low noise, looking back down at the packet in his hand. The packaging hadn't even changed. He could still remember it so clearly in his mother's hands. 

"Looking at it won't do anything, I think this is the part where you buy it."

"Should I?" Sasuke asked before he could think better of it. "Isn't this just a waste of time?"

"No?" Sakura had a strange look on her face for a moment before she smiled. "I think you should. Homemade bread is supposed to taste better anyway."

_ It does,  _ Sasuke didn't say, nodding instead before finally setting the packet down in the basket on the ground at his feet. It was the last thing he needed. Sasuke didn't want to buy any of it but picked back up his basket all the same, giving Sakura a quick goodbye before walking over to pay. 

When he got back to the apartment Sasuke threw the bag away and went to bed, though sleep didn't come for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: cooking and crying


	2. Chapter 2

Sasuke had been working the mission report desk for a week now, and the repetition of it all had slowly become something vaguely comforting. He knew what to expect each day when he started, and he didn't end each day exhausted and sore all over. He'd never spent his time this way before, and while a part of him still hated it another part just didn't, and Sasuke had no idea why. It certainly gave him entirely too much time to think, but he did that no matter what, and at least he didn't have to worry about someone trying to kill him. Not much anyway.

When someone walked up Sasuke didn't even bother looking and reached out his hand for the report. It was only after a moment of nothing meeting his hand that Sasuke looked up, beyond unprepared for who he found standing there. 

"Sasuke," Hinata said quietly, meeting his eyes for a moment before looking away. 

For the first time Sasuke was struck with how similar they looked, pale skin and dark hair, instantly hating himself for the thought. "Do you have a report to turn in?"

"No, I wondered if I could speak with you for a moment?"

Sasuke bit back his first response, somehow. "What about?"

"Naruto."

"What about Naruto?" Sasuke asked, voice growing tighter and tighter with each word he said. And to think his day had actually been going okay. 

"You're his best friend, and since we're–well I just think it would be nice if we could all be friends. I know Naruto would like it."

"Naruto would like to have ramen for every meal too, he doesn't always know what's best." Sasuke didn't know why he was talking, why he was letting these words out of all the ones he could say slip past his lips, but he just couldn't take this. Anyone telling him about what Naruto wanted felt like the worst kind of joke.

"Oh," Hinata said after a moment, and Sasuke could see the hurt in her eyes she was trying to hide. "I'm sorry, I just–"

"It was a bad joke," Sasuke cut in, hating himself for an entirely new reason, "Sorry."

Again with the apologies. Maybe he really had no idea who he was anymore. The next words out of his mouth only seemed to confirm it. "Why don't you and Naruto come over tomorrow night? I can make dinner."

Hinata smiled and Sasuke hated it. She agreed and he hated himself. 

Sasuke watched her walk away and wished more than anything he could just hate Naruto. 

*

"Explain to me again how this happened."

"Shut up." Sasuke reached out for the spoon before remembering that nothing needed to be stirred, bringing his arm back down to his side. "This is going to be a disaster."

"This is what adults do, right?" Sakura said as she refolded the napkin she was twisting up in her hands. "We're all adult adjacent now, I'm sure it'll be fine." 

"Maybe we should just burn down my apartment."

"Sasuke," Sakura said, her tone so different all at once Sasuke couldn't help but look over. The sight of her smile was more of a relief than he was prepared for. "It'll be fine."

It wouldn't be, but at least she was there. Sasuke hadn't been sure she would come over when he'd asked, especially with the way he'd left things with them last time. She hadn't pressed him, but they both knew that she knew why this was so hard for him. He really didn't know what he'd done to still have her here, to deserve her friendship at all. But he had no idea how to say any of that, so Sasuke just nodded before going back to staring at the rice on the stove, stirring the vegetables next to it just to do something with his hands. 

The knock at the door came before he was ready for it, even though he'd expect them to show up already.

"I'll get it," Sakura said, already walking out of the kitchen.

Sasuke listened to the sound of the door opening and them all greeting each other, warm and casual as Naruto commented on the fact that Sasuke hadn't told them Sakura would be there. Another side effect of having no idea what you were doing, poor planning. 

"You really are cooking," Naruto said as soon as he walked into the kitchen, not stopping until he was right there next to Sasuke at the stove.

"Stop it." Sasuke hit away Naruto's hand reaching for the lid. "It's not done yet."

"Why didn't I know you could cook like this?"

"I don't have time to list all the things you don't know about."

"Hey!" Naruto said, hitting his arm with a laugh.

Sasuke felt the beginnings of a smile pulling at his face before he glanced over and saw Hinata, and just like that it fell away. She was looking at them strangely, like she was seeing something for the first time. Sasuke didn't care what she thought she saw, but he didn't let their eye contact linger either. 

"Your apartment is very nice," Hinata said. "Thank you for having us over."

_ Us. _

"Sure," Sasuke said, all he could manage right now, looking at no one as he stared down at the stove. 

For a moment after no one said a thing, and Sasuke had serious regrets about not burning down his apartment while he'd still had the chance. But then Sakura brought up something about Kiba and the three of them started talking easily amongst themselves. Sasuke was unspeakably relieved, even more so when Naruto didn't move away from him, leaned back against the counter right next to the stove. The few times Sasuke glanced over it was like Naruto could feel it, looking over right after with a quick smile. 

The moment was suddenly so painfully close to perfect Sasuke seriously considered just leaving, despite this being his own apartment that he'd invited them all over to.

Instead he started making up everyone's plates, him and Naruto bringing them over to the table. Sasuke managed not to react when Naruto sat down next to him, but he saw a flicker of something come over Hinata's face. For a moment he almost felt bad for her, the feeling gone almost as soon as it came.

"What the hell," Naruto said as soon as he took a bite. "Sasuke, you've been holding out on me. This is so good."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, ignoring the burn he could feel at the back of his neck. "It's nothing. Your body is probably just going into shock from eating a vegetable."

"You made vegetables taste good, I don't think you understand what a big deal this is."

Sasuke took a drink just so he wouldn't have to reply, painfully aware of the other two people at the table. He didn't know Hinata well enough to know what the look on her face meant, but Sakura almost looked amused, with some lingering awkwardness there Sasuke couldn't stand. Thankfully after that the conversation between the three of them picked back up, and beyond the few words Sasuke didn't have to say much of anything. When they all finished eating the night had ended up feeling painfully normal, domestic like his life never was.

Sasuke walked them all to the door since they were all pretending to be adults tonight, nodding at Sakura with a small smile as she walked out. Hinata was hovering next to the door, looking at him and Naruto a few steps away. 

"Thanks Sasuke," Naruto said before pulling Sasuke into a hug he wasn't at all prepared for. "Seriously," Naruto whispered next to his ear, "thanks."

Naruto pulled back before Sasuke could even think to raise his arms, left blinking like a fool in his hallway. When he finally looked back up it was to see Naruto rest his hand low on Hinata's back as they walked out the door. The door shut behind them and Sasuke couldn't help the way he flinched, bringing his hands up to rub his face for a moment. 

He told himself that he was okay, that this was fine, that this was the new normal he had to get accustomed to, but it didn't work. Sasuke felt his shoulders start to shake, eyes burning as an ugly wet noise came out of him. His vision blurred, and Sasuke couldn't hold it back anymore. Each tear that fell he hated more, wondering if he would ever just be able to live like everyone else, go through each day without feeling like he was a breath away from crumbling. He was just so tired of doing this, holding it together by sheer force of will until the moment he was finally alone.

He was just so tired.

Suddenly the door was pushed back open and Sasuke quickly wiped at his face, but he knew it was too late. And of course it was him, the only person who would dare to burst into his place unannounced.

"Hey," Naruto said, his easy expression quickly falling away. "Hey," he said again, his tone completely different as he walked towards Sasuke. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Sasuke snapped, so horrified he was amazed he could speak at all. "What do you want? Why did you come back?"

"Sasuke," Naruto said softly, "you're crying. Tell me what's wrong."

Sasuke made a disgusted sound, roughly rubbing at his eyes. When Naruto reached out and tried to touch his shoulder Sasuke stepped back, his throat closing up for a moment as he shook his head. "Why did you come back? Did you forget something?"

"It doesn't matter now, just tell me what–"

"Tell me what you need or leave. I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Why are you being like this?" Naruto asked, taking another step back towards him. "Come on, I can't leave now, knowing you're this upset."

"I'm fine." Sasuke swallowed roughly, looking down for a moment to rapidly blink against his traitorous eyes. 

"Sasuke–"

"Isn't Hinata waiting for you?" Sasuke asked, feeling moments away from falling over the edge again, needing Naruto to leave more than anything _.  _ "What are you doing back here?"

"She went home."

Sasuke finally looked over, more confused than he knew what to do with right now. "And you came back here."

Naruto's expression turned awkward for a moment. "I was gonna see if I could have the leftovers."

Sasuke found himself laughing for half a moment before more tears started to fall, looking back down though he knew it wouldn't hide a thing. Naruto should have been walking his girlfriend home, not standing there watching Sasuke cry. Naruto should have been doing so many other things besides being there with him, but this always seemed to be where he ended up. Somehow it made less and less sense to Sasuke the more time that passed, defining Naruto's orbit around him the new great task of his now pointless existence.

Without looking Sasuke turned and walked over to the living room, sitting down on his couch and feeling Naruto sit down next to him a moment after. He still couldn't bring himself to turn and look. Sasuke didn't even want to imagine what Naruto must have been thinking now, let alone the look on his face. Somehow Naruto's face always made everything so much worse.

"Don't worry about me," Sasuke said softly, voice still rough with his slowly fading tears. "I know how this looks, but I'm fine."

"This isn't what fine looks like."

Sasuke turned, anger pushing him to move until he saw Naruto's expression.

"Tell me what I can do," Naruto said, so ernest Sasuke wanted to turn to dirt. "Tell me how to fix this."

"Nothing's wrong," Sasuke forced out, the words so clearly a lie he wasn't even sure why he bothered to say them. "You can't fix it."

"There has to be something I can do."

"Well there isn't!" Sasuke hated the words as soon as he said them, voice too loud with hands that refused to stay still, trembling and shaking and desperate to finally be the one to reach out. "Sometimes things just are."

"Don't talk about yourself like that."

Sasuke could hardly bring himself to talk. "Like what?"

"Like you'll be in pain forever."

A sound escaped him, frustrated and weak as Sasuke rubbed roughly over his eyes. It almost felt like he could hate Naruto now. Almost. 

But then Sasuke looked over, saw the open plea for him to be okay shining out from Naruto's too blue eyes and knew, just like always. For once he didn't want to leave Naruto on a crumbling cliffside alone, drowning on a sinking piece of driftwood. Maybe just this one Sasuke could give a small piece of himself back, all the endless shards and crumbs of Naruto drifting around inside of him inescapable.

"I haven't had a meal like that since my family." Sasuke only realized the full truth of his words as he said them, struck by a fresh wave of grief after all these long years. "It was just harder for me than I thought it would be."

"Oh," Naruto said softly, reaching out to squeeze his knee after a moment. "I'm sorry Sasuke."

"It's fine," Sasuke said again, knowing that they both knew that it wasn't. 

Naruto insisted on staying and doing the dishes for him and Sasuke didn't even have it in himself to argue, knowing that Naruto needed to feel like he was doing something to help. Sasuke hated how much it did, the quiet sounds of him moving around the kitchen easing some of the tension inside of him. Even if it wasn't the way he wanted, at least he wasn't alone. 

At least until Naruto went home for the night.

*

Sasuke knew glaring at the oven wouldn't change anything, but after the first loaf went flat and the second under-baked and doughy it felt like he had to now, if only to feel like he was doing something. He refused to go back to the store again. Sasuke had decided before it even went into the oven that this was going to be his last loaf of bread. He still wasn't sure why he was bothering at all, it wasn't like he even liked bread that much. When the timer beeped Sasuke pulled it out and to the eye it looked better than the others had, but he wouldn't know for sure until it cooled and he could cut it open. 

He still didn't know who it was he thought he was even making this for. It wasn't like there was anyone else here to try it. He could always bring it to someone, but just the idea of giving anyone bread he'd baked seemed so impossibly embarrassing Sasuke knew he never would. 

So there was really no point to this at all. 

Sasuke left the bread on the counter and walked back to his room, falling face first onto his bed. He wasn't sure how long he spent there before someone was knocking at his door, but from the way his neck cracked when he stood up Sasuke suspected it had been too long. Sasuke let himself wait a moment longer, seeing if they would just leave but there was only more knocking. Sasuke sighed and walked over to the door, doing nothing to disguise how annoyed he was when he pulled it open.

After only half a moment of taking in Naruto's expression it all fell away, anger and worry the only things left. "What happened?"

Naruto smiled but it was a weak looking thing, lasting only a moment before it was gone again. His eyes were damp and darting all over the place, never staying on Sasuke. When he finally spoke his voice was small in a way it so rarely ever was. "Can I come in?"

Sasuke stepped back without a word, doing nothing to disguise the way he was watching Naruto as he walked in. He was trying to brace himself for too many possibilities and Sasuke just needed Naruto to tell him what was wrong so he could fix it. Naruto hadn't even moved to join him on the couch, just standing there a few steps away from it, looking at nothing. "Naruto."

"What? Oh, yeah." Naruto watched over and sat down, hands on his knees and looking at the wall away from where Sasuke sat down next to him. "Me and Hinata got into a fight."

Sasuke let himself take a long slow breath, fighting against the reaction he could feel building up inside of him. "Oh."

"And it's not even that really, it's just–I can't understand where any of it was coming from?" Naruto finally turned to look at him, his expression like he was waiting for Sasuke to somehow agree, to reassure Naruto that he was right when Sasuke had no idea what had happened.

"What did she say?" 

Naruto's face went pinched for a moment before he laughed, a thin awkward sound that dropped off again just as quickly. One of his hands left his knee to rub the back of his neck, back to not looking at Sasuke at all. "It was kind of about you."

"What do you mean?" Sasuke forced out, using everything he had to keep the irrational panic from his voice. But Naruto just shook his head.

"It wasn't, not really. You just came up because–well because it's you." Naruto shrugged like he'd said the sky was blue, like water was wet, like he hadn't just flipped Sasuke over inside.

"What does that mean?" Sasuke asked, hating the sound of his own voice more than he ever had before.

Naruto shook his head, again. "I shouldn't have mentioned it, it was just a passing comment really. I should just let it go, right?"

Sasuke still didn't have a clear idea what they were talking about, but asking was getting him nowhere. So like a fool Sasuke had to ask again. "Let what go?"

"Sasuke really, it's not–"

"Naruto." Sasuke waited for Naruto to turn back at him. He wasn't sure he could remember ever seeing that look on Naruto's face before. "You came here for a reason, just tell me."

Naruto didn't say anything for a long moment. "Can I ask you something?" 

"Okay," Sasuke said after a beat, trying to prepare himself for the unknown, dread like a rolling sea inside of him.

"Do you think we're too close?" 

There was too much he could say to that. Sasuke already regretted asking, but Naruto still looked so lost, like Sasuke was the only one who could make this right again. Sasuke desperately wanted to fix something for Naruto, even just this once, but it didn't feel like the truth would fix anything now, it only felt like it would make Naruto look that much worse. "I don't know. You're the only one I'm close to anymore."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why?" Sasuke asked, knowing exactly what Naruto meant and unable to even think about how he could face it now.

"I mean why haven't you gotten close to anyone else since you came back? You could have, I've seen people try to talk to you." Naruto smiled then, a tight small thing as he let out a nervous sounding laugh. "More people would like you if you let them."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Sasuke tried to keep the anger from his voice and knew he failed. "Since when have I ever been close to anyone?"

"But you could be, that's what I'm saying. It doesn't have to just be me, you could–"

"I don't want there to be!" Sauske shook his head before standing up, knowing he had nowhere he could run to but desperately wanting it all the same. "I can't stand most of the people here, I can't stand the way they look at me, the way they talk to me, the way they  _ breathe _ . None of them would want to talk to me at all if they knew."

"If they knew what?" Naruto's voice was soft and confused, because of course it was. 

It was a strange sort of relief, that Naruto still couldn't understand this kind of bitterness.

Sasuke watched Naruto stand up from the couch and wanted to scream at him to sit back down, to leave, to never leave, to shut up and to never stop trying to pry the words out of Sasuke's horrible mouth. Sasuke looked at Naruto and wanted everything, and more than that Sasuke just wanted the feeling to stop. For once he just wanted to figure out how to look away. "It doesn't matter."

"Sasuke," Naruto started, reaching out to touch Sasuke's arm, his shoulder maybe. His expression was one Sasuke knew far too well.

Sasuke took a step back, heart racing. "Why are we talking about this? What, you think we're too close but don't know how to say it? Is that it?"

Naruto almost looked frantic now, panic growing behind his eyes. "What?  _ No,  _ Sasuke come on, you know that's not what I mean."

Sasuke did know. "Do I? Then what is this about Naruto? How does you fighting with your girlfriend turn into an interrogation about my life?" 

"I don't know! I didn't mean to, I just–I don't know. Sorry."

Sasuke felt like dirt. Like moldy dirt. He'd known exactly what this was about the entire time, but sometimes he just couldn't help himself. Sometimes Sasuke just had to pick at the scab of their never quite healed relationship and prove the truth to himself yet again. But the truth didn't feel the same this time. Nothing seemed to feel the way it used to. "Does Hinata think we're too close?" 

Naruto grimaced. "She didn't say it exactly like that but yeah, I guess she does."

The next question felt impossible but Sasuke knew he had to say it now, knowing that he never would if he didn't. "You really don't think we're too close?" 

"No." Naruto looked down at the floor between them, hands clenched at his sides and knuckles going white. "I didn't anyway."

Maybe Sasuke was worse than dirt. He knew he had no right to the anger building up inside of him, but it had nowhere else to go. Naruto was the only one there. "So you do now."

"I didn't say that." But Naruto still wasn't looking at him. "I just don't know what to do."

Sasuke bit back the cruel words building up inside of him. It was the least he could do now after everything Naruto had done for him, over and over and over again. "Okay." Sasuke took a deep breath. "Sorry you two are fighting."

Naruto looked up at him, first with surprise and then sadness, and then with something else all together. "Yeah."

The silence that stretched out between them after that was some of the worst Sasuke could remember in recent memory. He was desperate to fill it, but it was so impossible to speak when he couldn't say anything that he actually felt, that actually mattered to him at all. For once Sasuke just wanted to be able to do something for Naruto, to give him anything, to make Naruto feel even the smallest bit better like he'd done for Sasuke countless times before, just by being himself. Sasuke didn't have any part of himself left to give that he wasn't terrified would infect Naruto just the same way it had him, leaving them both rotting from the inside out.

Then he remembered what he'd spent his day doing. "Are you hungry?"

"I guess," Naruto said after a beat. "Why?"

"I made bread, it should be cool enough now to eat."

Naruto blinked at him for a moment before his entire face lit up. "You bake now too?"

_ I made it for you,  _ Sasuke didn't say, even though he'd known the whole time, regardless of what he told himself. His mother had always said the point of putting in the work of baking something by hand was the smile it could bring to someone's face. Even now, his eyes still rimmed in sadness and the lingering awkwardness of their conversation clinging to him, Naruto's smile made it all seem worth it.

Distantly Sasuke hoped that in another life he was the type of person who smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: Naruto worries, Sasuke and Hinata talk


	3. Chapter 3

When Sasuke woke up he didn't know what he felt like more of an idiot for, finally convincing Kakashi to let him go out on a mission again only to get hurt, or that he'd let himself fall victim to something so painfully obvious to begin with.

Maybe he really was too distracted for anything more than desk work now.

Sasuke sighed and ached all over, slowly opening his eyes to see the too familiar hospital ceiling above him. Sakura was sitting to his left, filling out forms in her lap. Sasuke turned his head just slightly and she looked up, smiling when she met his eyes. She looked tired but relieved. "Sasuke, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

It was amazing how in a few small words Sasuke could hear her voice shift from Sakura to doctor. "Sore and tired, but not that bad."

She made a quiet sound and wrote a few things down. "Do you remember what happened?"

Sauske rolled his eyes even though they ached. "Yes." 

Sakura's tone changed all at once. "How did you manage to get hit with this anyway? Has the desk really made you that soft?"

Sasuke felt his face begin to burn and hated everything all at once. "Is this question about my medical care?"

Sakura had the nerve to look put out. "Oh come on, don't be like that. I just wanna know what happened." 

"I got distracted okay," Sasuke snapped, instantly regretting it with the way it made his head ache and let his eyes fall shut again for a moment. "I can't get distracted now?"

Sakura opened her mouth then shut it again. She looked annoyed but not the least bit surprised. "I'm gonna let you rest." 

Before she could even move to get up Naruto was pushing open the door to his room, rushing in the moment he saw that Sasuke was awake. Sasuke hardly took a breath and then Naruto was there on his other side, ignoring the chair all together and sitting down next to him on the bed. He started to reach out and then dropped his hands down to his own lap instead. "Hey, you're up. Are you okay? Is he okay?"

Sakura's voice had unthawed completely. "Yes Naruto, he's fine. I told you he was fine."

"I know." Naruto's voice was as soft as Sasuke had ever heard it. He hadn't looked away from Sasuke since the moment he'd come in. "But he wasn't waking up."

"How long was I asleep?" Sasuke asked, realizing he didn't know.

"Two days."

Naruto was looking down at him the way Sasuke was always secretly wishing for, like he was the sun, the air in their lungs, the center and meaning of everything. Sasuke didn't have the strength to pull his eyes away now.

It was so easy to forget how alone he really was when Naruto looked at him like that.

"You're leaving?" Naruto said as he finally turned away for a moment, and it was only then that Sasuke realized Sakura had stood up. The knowing look in her eye only made his face burn that much more. 

"I have other people to check on, I trust you can look after him?"

Naruto actually saluted her and Sasuke felt something inside of him wither up and die. Or maybe he just desperately wished that it would. He would have given just about anything to feel any other way than he did right now, completely caught with no hope of escape. Maybe he would just find everything Naruto did completely unbearable now.

"You got it boss."

A few steps against the tile floor followed by the sound of the door opening and closing again, and then they were alone. Sasuke didn't know why he was so worried. He knew exactly why he was so worried. Naruto was pressing into the side of his thigh where he sat, and the longer it went on the more Sasuke could hardly think of anything else but the heat of it. He felt too tired and worn thin to deal with any of this, especially with the way Naruto wouldn't stop looking at him. 

Sasuke didn't know how to deal with getting something he'd wanted this badly, knowing that he hadn't really gotten it at all. It was only his heart that couldn't seem to let go, even after all these years.

"You don't really have to watch me," Sasuke finally said when he didn't know how to stand it anymore, "You can leave, I'll probably just sleep."

"Do you want me to go?" 

Sasuke knew what it felt like he needed to say. He knew what the truth was, and more than anything he knew what Naruto would want to hear. For maybe the first time in his life they were all the same. For maybe the first time in his life an answer was easy. 

Sasuke shook his head. 

Naruto smiled and took his hand, and neither of them said a word. 

Sasuke slowly drifted back to sleep.

*

"Sasuke, are you seriously gonna ignore me?"

Sasuke kept walking in silence, refusing to look back at Naruto, refusing to say a single thing at all. He was annoyed, but not nearly as much as he should have been, so Sasuke was acting all the more so to compensate. Naruto wrapped an arm around his shoulders again, and again Sasuke stepped out from under it. 

It didn't feel like he would be able to do it again, not when he loved the feeling of it so much. 

"Sasuke," Naruto whined, dragging it out like he was a child begging for sweets, "I can't stand it when you ignore me, come on."

Something in Naruto's voice stopped him, or maybe it was just the constant unavoidable truth of all the years Sasuke knew he had done nothing but ignore Naruto. Either way Sasuke wasn't moving anymore, turning back to find Naruto standing just behind him. It was late enough that there were only a few people walking by, but Sasuke couldn't help wondering what they all must have thought when they saw him and Naruto standing there like this, closer than they should have been.

Naruto knew what personal space was, Sasuke had seen him respect it with just about everyone else. It was only ever with him that Naruto seemed to forget himself, and Sasuke thought about it more than he could stand.

"I'm not ignoring you," Sasuke said slowly, exhausted and empty of the energy needed to hold a conversation. "I told you, I'm tired. I'm going back to my apartment. My. Apartment."

Naruto actually had the nerve to look hurt. "I just want to make sure–"

"I got out of the hospital three days ago. Go home."

_ Go home before I do something neither of us can take back. _

"But you're still not completely better." 

Sasuke didn't know what to call the feeling twisting him up inside, fond annoyance, bitter affection maybe? It didn't really matter either way. "They wouldn't have let me leave the hospital if I wasn't okay to be alone." 

Naruto shrugged, his expression like he'd already decided he was right. "A few extra days doesn't hurt anything."

"It's already been a few extra days." Sasuke saw Naruto open his mouth and rushed to go on. "Stop arguing with me about this. I don't want to argue."

"I don't either." Naruto swallowed and Sasuke watched it for too long. "Can't I just stay one more night?"

Sasuke felt like he was crumbling apart inside, unable to hold back the question that had been building up inside of him for days. "Why do you want to?"

Naruto looked almost shocked by the question, a reaction that on anyone else would have been completely ridiculous but Sasuke could too easily believe that up until this moment Naruto hadn't given any thought to why at all. So Sasuke just waited, watching Naruto search for the answer inside himself. Sasuke wasn't even sure he wanted him to find it anymore, already regretting asking him to leave.

"I just worry," Naruto finally said, his fingers picking at the edge of his sleeve as his eyes darted between Sasuke and the ground. "I just worry about you."

"Naruto," Sasuke forced out, but that was all he could manage to say. He knew painfully well just how much Naruto had worried about him, for years, pushing aside every other part of his life just to make Sasuke okay again. 

_ How can I be Hokage if I can't even save one friend? _

"Naruto," Sasuke started again, saying it again just so he had to face how much this mattered, "You can't live your life for me."

"Why not?" 

Trust Naruto to give the one response he wasn't ready for. "What?"

"Why can't I?" Naruto reached out and took hold of his wrist, and Sasuke couldn't tell if that was better or worse than his hand. "You're finally back, everything is finally the way it's supposed to be. Why can't I put you first?" 

Sasuke struggled to speak. "What about what you want?"

Naruto laughed like Sasuke was the fool between them. "This is about what I want, you're the one telling me to leave."

"But…" 

"Sasuke." Naruto squeezed his wrist again. "Stop worrying so much, let's just go home."

There was so much he needed to say, to remind Naruto of, but the words just wouldn't come. Naruto calling his empty pitiful apartment their home felt like close to too much, enough for Sasuke to pull his wrist free and step back. He glared down at the ground between them, wondering if life would even finish rubbing his face into the dirt. "You have your own home to go to Naruto."

"Sasuke–"

"What about your girlfriend? Did you forget you have one?"

Naruto looked like he couldn't decide if he was more hurt or embarrassed. "Why are you bringing her up? This isn't about her."

"Is anything about her for you?" Sasuke couldn't seem to make the words stop, tumbling out of him like poison on the air between them. "Do you ever even think to put her first? In anything?"

"Why are you acting like you care about Hinata? You're the one who said you didn't care about anyone else but me, so why can't I put you first?"

"Because you have a girlfriend!" Sasuke yelled, distantly aware that they were close to making a scene in the middle of the road. "You can't treat me like this, it's not fair."

"Not fair?" Naruto looked more lost than ever. "You're my best friend, how am I–"

"Friends don't act like this."

Naruto's expression flickered, worry finally bleeding out behind his eyes. When he spoke it hardly sounded like a question, voice small like it never was. "I thought you said you didn't think we were too close."

"I don't, but–" Sasuke cut himself off with an irritated sound, horrified with what he needed to say, knowing that he never could. He could hardly believe he'd just let himself get that close in the first place.

"But what?"

"But nothing! Go home, to your own apartment and leave me alone." Naruto was looking at him like he hadn't in so long, since before Sasuke had come back. "Is that clear enough for you? Do you get it now?"

But apparently Naruto didn't get it, taking another step closer with his hand reaching out again. "Sasuke, come on. Where is this even coming from?"

Sasuke took a large step back, refusing to meet Naruto's eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest. It seemed safer to just stop speaking at all, but every moment of silence between them now felt like the heaviest winter cold seeping into his bones, freezing Sasuke to the spot in his shame. Or maybe he really was a coward after all. 

It just felt so monumentally unfair, the feeling eclipsing the rational in his mind until all Sasuke could think of was how much he wished he knew how to hope for anything at all.

"Sasuke, just tell me."

Sasuke was glaring right at Naruto before he could think again, wide blue eyes waiting for him. He searched for any recognition, even the smallest shade of a maybe, but it was just Naruto looking back at him like he had so many times before. "I told you to go home already, that's all I have to say."

Naruto's eyes actually dared to get wet, leaving Sasuke cracking apart inside. He sounded like he had so many times before, a horribly familiar vulnerability. "Just tell me what I did, and I'll fix it."

"You didn't–nothing happened, I just want to be alone." Letting out another sigh Sasuke let his eyes fall shut for a moment, pretending he was collected and self-contained when he opened them again. "I'm tired, just–don't worry about what I said before."

Sasuke turned away, grimacing the moment he knew Naruto couldn't see it. It was like he'd forgotten how to lie at all, raw inside by the sandpaper in his own palms. He wasn't sure the last time he'd felt quite so ridiculous, if you could call the crater opening up inside of him ridiculous. It was the only word Sasuke could bear to think.

He made it three steps before Naruto called out, nervous but hopeful. "Can I come by tomorrow after lunch to train?"

Sasuke told himself he wasn't relieved, even as he felt his spine remember how to relax. "Do whatever you want."

*

Hinata was standing just outside his front door, her hands clasped together in front of her as her eyes shifted around restlessly. From a moment all Sasuke could do was look at her, wanting to laugh in the worst way. When she turned over and saw him standing a few steps away she made a soft surprised noise, like Sasuke was the one blocking her from going inside her home.

"Is Naruto not with you?"

Sasuke let out a bitter short thing that no one would call a laugh, but he couldn't remember how to care anymore. It wasn't like any of this was her fault, he just couldn't help it. "I told him to go home."

"Oh." And then she just stood there, looking and not looking at him.

He'd probably never hated another person quite like this, in a way he had no real desire to express. "Do you want to come in for a cup of tea before you head back?"

Hinata looked as surprised by the question as he felt by asking it, but after a beat she was nodding, and just like that they headed inside. Slipping off their shoes, Sasuke motioned for her to sit at his small table before going to turn on the water, feeling the silence build up between them with no idea how he'd imagined he could fill it just moments before when he'd invited her inside. She was probably feeling just the same, but the thought brought him no comfort.

Sasuke poured out their cups in silence, and sat down just the same. After he took a small drink he finally looked across the table, finding Hinata looking down at her lap, cup untouched. "You should just say it."

She looked up, pale eyes wide. "Sorry?"

"Whatever it is you want to say to me."

"I…" 

Something told Sasuke to wait so he did just that, slowly drinking his tea as Hinata struggled across from him. He was regretting this more and more by the moment, but another part of him would never forgive himself if he didn't find out what she had to say now. 

"Do you think Naruto really wants to be with me?"

Sasuke relaxed without meaning to, realizing his anxieties had been pointless when she was basically a stranger to him. Still, that wasn't close to what he'd been expecting her to ask him, though it probably should have been the very first thing. It was what any girlfriend would ask the best friend after all. "I'm not sure."

It wasn't a yes and it wasn't a no, an answer Sasuke would have hated receiving himself, but after the conversation he'd just had with Naruto it was the only one he had to give. Sasuke doubted Naruto knew what Naruto really wanted at this point. Or maybe he just didn't want him to.

"Oh," she said again, soft and hardly there. It was hard to tell if she was upset or not. "Alright."

There was too much he wanted to say, the words he finally settled on weak and far reaching all at once. "Would it really be alright for you, if Naruto doesn't?"

Something strange flickered over her face, gone again just as quickly. A small, sad smile took its place. "I never expected to be with him at all."

Hinata left shortly after that, thanking Sasuke for the tea she never tasted. Sasuke shut the door and did nothing else for a long moment, hand still on the handle. It was strange to consider, that they both had expected to end up with no part of Naruto and between them both they held everything that he was in their hands. 

Sasuke gripped the handle tight, then turned around and went to bed. 

He dreamt of an endless wheat field, cold and familiar, a hunger that twisted up his insides and refused to die, even as dried up grass spilled from his throat.

*

Sasuke knew he was being a coward, taking the afternoon shift at the mission desk just so he wouldn't have to deal with Naruto. He just didn't know what he would end up saying, what words from yesterday Naruto would still be holding onto inside, if any at all. Sasuke could never tell what would stick with Naruto, and his half spoken words from yesterday were no different. He felt like his real meaning had been impossible to miss, but Sasuke knew just how likely it was that Naruto still hadn't heard him. 

Hiding at the mission desk wasn't his finest moment, but it was far from his worst, so Sasuke decided that he didn't care that all he was really doing was running away again. It didn't feel like far enough with the lengths Naruto had gone to find him before, and now that Sasuke never went far it wasn't a question of Naruto finding him, only when.

But Naruto never showed up his entire shift, dramatically yelling at the end of the hallway like he'd imagined, saying Sasuke's name loud enough for people in the sand to hear him. When Sasuke got up from the desk that evening he couldn't shake the feeling that he still wasn't in the clear, tense the entire walk back to his apartment. Some part of him had been expecting to find Naruto outside the door just like Hinata the day before, but his front step was empty. 

The inside of his apartment wasn't.

"Did you seriously break in?"

Naruto didn't even have the nerve to look apologetic. "I mean, I didn't actually break anything."

His tone of voice was off, and he wasn't quite meeting Sasuke's eyes. Toeing off his sandals Sasuke walked over to where Naruto stood by his couch, sitting down and looking up at him. He could only see Naruto's profile from a low angle like this, all jawline and blonde hair. "What happened?"

Naruto finally turned to look down at him. "I should be the one asking that, I thought we were gonna train."

"I had to work."

Naruto snorted. "Right, I'm sure no one else could take reports."

"What?" Sasuke snapped, more irritated than he was ready for. "I'm not fighting now, so it doesn't matter?"

"I didn't say that." Naruto sighed and finally sat down next to him, eyebrows pinched together. He took too long to speak, like he was actually thinking about what he wanted to say for once. "Are you gonna tell me yet?"

Sasuke's throat went dry. "Tell you what?"

Naruto turned to look right at him. Somehow Sasuke stopped himself from shrinking away, even when he was already drowning. Naruto's eyes were so wide, nearly as hurt as his words. "Why you're so mad at me."

"I'm–" But Sasuke couldn't say it, realizing that once again Naruto had found something in him that Sasuke hadn't made himself look at yet. But it didn't feel like something he could express without exposing the whole of himself, raw and alone, so he just turned his eyes away again like a coward. "It doesn't matter."

"Sasuke." He sounded almost as tired as Sasuke felt.

"Can't you just leave this alone?"

"Not when you're avoiding me."

"I miss one training session and I'm ignoring you now?"

"Are you?"

Was he? He hadn't thought to, but Sasuke could already feel excuses building up inside of him. Maybe he still didn't know how to face Naruto, not really, not how it mattered or needed to be between them. Things had hardly had time to steady out, and Sasuke didn't want to risk it all just because he couldn't keep his barely examined jealousy in check. 

It would have been so much easier if all of this was just jealousy. 

"I spoke to Hinata yesterday."

Naruto's tone changed all at once. "You did?" 

Sasuke glanced over and saw Naruto rapidly blinking, which meant that he was trying to make sense of Sasuke's words and failing. 

"Oh."

"So you haven't seen her then, still." 

"It's not–I was gonna see her tomorrow or something." Naruto's eyes went to the far wall, hand picking at the seat custom beneath him as his tone turned strained. "Why do you keep bringing her up? What, do you like her or something?"

Sasuke blinked, made a sound he would never claim, and finally let out something close to a laugh. "Are you kidding me? I hardly know her."

Naruto shrugged, restless all over with eyes that still refused to look at any part of Sasuke. "So? I hardly know her either."

Sasuke just stared at him for a moment, wishing he could be stunned by Naruto's continued lack of self awareness. "Naruto."

"What?"

Sighing, Sasuke let his head fall back against the couch, eyes falling shut just to escape that horribly genuine look of confusion on Naruto's face for a moment. Maybe he just had to say it. Nothing less would work with Naruto being the person he was, but saying anything more when Sasuke was the person that he was felt at least as impossible, if not more. Actually forcing the words out now, months into letting himself believe he would never have to say them, maybe even years, wasn't something Sasuke had thought to prepare himself for. 

He'd never let himself imagine so much of what had brought them to this moment. He'd never imagined having to watch Naruto try and fail to be with someone this way, painful like nothing else had ever been, not worse, just different. Another surprise Sasuke wasn't sure how to begin to face. Another wave crashing inside him, pulled never by the moon but always, always that same impossible sun.

"Sasuke?"

Finally opening his eyes Sasuke turned his head just slightly, taking in Naruto's expression with a quick glance before looking away again. He looked too nervous, like somehow he already knew that Sasuke was standing on the edge, what he was about to ruin between them forever. "How did you and Hinata start dating? Did you ask her out?"

"Yeah, but I already knew–she confessed, before. So I knew what she would say."

Sasuke couldn't make sense of Naruto's expression, a strange tension there he couldn't remember ever seeing before now. He had no idea what to do with it, the look or the way that the knowledge that there were still parts of Naruto that he didn't understand sat against his chest. "Why did you ask?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're making it sound like some time passed between her confessing and you asking." Sasuke could remember the look on Naruto's face now on him at close to every age, angry embarrassment that Naruto was still so horrible at hiding. "What made you ask?"

Naruto's shrug was a short, rough looking thing, his expression pulling just like when he was sore after losing one of their spars. He was never this quiet after losing. "I told you, I knew she would say yes."

"And that's it, that's your only reason for dating her?"

"What's wrong with that?" Naruto asked, tone going stilted and defensive.

Sasuke's chest felt heavy, and his voice came out soft like he always fought so hard for it not to be. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

The words felt young and impossible, something Sasuke couldn't recall ever asking someone else in earnest before in his life. "Do you have feelings for her?"

Naruto made a weird choked sound, color blooming bright and quick across his face. For a blink it was like the rest of his apartment was in greyscale, Naruto pulling every color to him just by being, just by breathing and taking up the space that Sasuke was always so desperate for him to inhabit. Looking away again Naruto shrugged, half a thing that Sasuke suspected he wasn't even aware of. "Sure, I mean, why wouldn't I?"

Sasuke reminded himself that they were alone, thinking of just how his empty apartment felt each night. He wanted to be selfish so badly. "It would be okay if you didn't."

"But why wouldn't I?" Naruto's eyes wouldn't stay still now, darting from the wall to his hands to Sasuke's bare feet. "Isn't this what I'm supposed to do?"

"Only if it's what you want."

Naruto's voice was hardly there at all now, almost fragile even. "But she loves me."

Naruto sounded young and scared, maybe even weak. Sasuke had never imagined it making him feel this way, but of course he hadn't. He'd spent so much of his life pushing himself to think of anything but this, Naruto and everything that he was, all the ways he reflected back at Sasuke until all Sasuke could want was  _ them,  _ together in all things. They were so close to it already, some days the light hit them both just right and it was all Sasuke could do not to pretend that there was no distance left between them now. 

This was the point where anyone else would have hugged Naruto, taken his hand, made even the smallest of noises of understanding; Sasuke didn't know how to be that person. He just watched Naruto, wishing he could crawl inside his mind and finally know if Naruto ached to show Sasuke his last hidden corners just the same, another perfectly cast reflection. "Just because someone loves you doesn't mean you feel the same." There was too much pain in his voice, but it was all Sasuke could do just to keep talking. "You don't owe her this for loving you that way."

Naruto's eyes met his again, wide and something close to afraid, a sea moments away from freezing over. "But she's the only one that ever has, what if…" 

"She's not." The words were barely out before Sasuke rushed to continue, palms itching with nerves as regrets piled up the back of his throat. "It's not fair to her, if you don't feel the same."

Sasuke waited for Naruto to ask the question he was dreading, but it never came. Naruto just kept watching the air before him with unseeing eyes, mouth just slightly parted like it was ready for words he hadn't found yet. Their hands were so close together on the couch, yet somehow they had never felt further apart.

"I'm gonna make dinner." 

Naruto just looked at him for a long moment before nodding. Sasuke made himself stand and started walking towards the kitchen, leaving Naruto alone to his thoughts. They ate together in near silence not long after, Naruto's usual comment on all the green nowhere to be found, and then just like that he was gone.

Sasuke looked at the empty seat he'd left behind, wondering.

That night he dreamt of nothing. A nothing that couldn't hold itself together under the yellow light of day. Nothing that he knew how to look at with intention or conscious thought. That nothing that was always there, refusing to take shape beneath every choice he made. Paint that never quite dried.

So Sasuke did just the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: cavities


	4. Chapter 4

Sasuke didn't talk to Naruto for the next week. It wasn't anywhere close to the longest amount of time they'd gone without seeing each other before, but each day that passed just felt more endless than the last, until Sasuke wasn't sure what he hoped to gain from any of this anymore.

The first day he hadn't thought much of it, wanting space for himself to be alone as well. But the next day he couldn't help but start to wonder, glancing over his shoulder, listening for the sound of a knock at his door that never came. On the third day Sasuke walked to Naruto's apartment, glaring up at its dark windows from the street below for too long before leaving without even going to the door. On the fourth day Sasuke woke up done, deciding then and there that he wouldn't be the one to reach out first if Naruto wanted to be this petty.

Sasuke went through three more days of smearing his bitterness on everything he touched before someone finally said something to change it, painting him as a fool once again without even knowing it.

"Don't worry about straightening up," Iruka said as he came up to relieve him from the desk. "I just saw Naruto getting back from his mission, so I won't keep you."

It was only his years of training that kept the surprise from his expression, silently standing up instead as Sasuke tried to ignore whatever that knowing look on Iruka's face was supposed to mean. He looked too happy, and Sasuke didn't know how to begin to trust something like that looking back at him. Some of his confusion must have shown on his face because Iruka actually laughed a little, a sight irritating enough to finally get Sasuke to turn and leave.

The walk back to his apartment felt longer than usual, probably because Sasuke kept having to tell himself that was where he was really going. When he reached the turn that truly decided where he had to go Sasuke actually came to a stop, unable to move forward. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to see Naruto right now, or if Naruto would want to see him. He could be tired from his mission, he could already be back at home in his bed, he could be pacing Sasuke's apartment, he could be anywhere. Maybe it didn't really matter what Sasuke decided to do now, not when he knew he would see Naruto again eventually, probably soon rather than later.

Still, Sasuke found himself turning down the road towards Naruto's place, wanting eventually to be now. He couldn't help the sigh he let out when a light was shining down at him from Naruto's apartment window, relieved and exasperated all at once. The feeling shifted to worry when Naruto was so slow to answer his own door, the sound of his steps just slightly unsteady. Sasuke was completely unprepared for the sight that was waiting for him when the door finally opened.

Naruto was visibly hurt, like he hadn't been coming back from a mission in so long.

"What happened?" Sasuke demanded as he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He had a hand halfway stretched out before he could think, like if he just touched the strange looking burn along the edge of Naruto's jaw it would go away. Sasuke let his hand drop back down to his side, remembering who he was. "You never come back hurt."

Naruto let out a somewhat strained laugh, just barely not meeting Sasuke's eyes. "Weird mission."

Sasuke tried not to boil over in worry and irritation, nodding over to Naruto's room instead. "Go lay down."

"But I–"

"I'm making dinner, go wait."

Naruto's face did something funny then, open and closed off all at once before he looked away, his body turning to follow as he started to slowly walk towards his room. 

Sasuke didn't know what to do with Naruto's easy acceptance, his confusion quickly shifting to disgust when he saw what he had to work with in Naruto's kitchen. Trying to figure out what meal he could scrape together when all he really wanted to do was figure out why Naruto was hurt now of all times felt near impossible, especially when all Sasuke could seem to think of was the look on Naruto's face just before he left the room. Sasuke had too many questions all at once, this mission the answer to the one that had been burning at the back of his mind all week and only setting off a thousand more inside of him in answer.

Giving up on really cooking Sasuke decided to go the easy route, knowing it would make Naruto happy and truly unable to think of anything else that he could make with what was there. Sasuke couldn't leave now, even if it would have just been a quick run to the market. The last time he'd seen Naruto look that hurt he'd been the one to make him that way, and Sasuke didn't know what to do with that. The idea that he could make it right now was just a fantasy, but it felt even worse to do nothing. 

Sasuke didn't want to be that person anymore, so he put the food on a tray and went to Naruto's room.

Naruto's smile didn't disappoint. "Did you seriously make me ramen?"

"It's literally all you have in that hell hole of a kitchen." Sasuke waited for Naruto to sit up fully before he put the tray over his lap, realizing there was nowhere to sit but the bed and apparently decided that standing awkwardly was the best choice. 

Naruto wasn't that hurt, now that Sasuke was really looking, the burn along his jaw and a cut Sasuke could see just above his elbow, a smattering of bruises, but nothing that would cause alarm on any other ninja after a mission. Naruto wasn't any other ninja, and Sasuke didn't know what to do with the fact that someone out there had been strong enough to hurt him this badly. So much could have happened, Sasuke could see the countless possibilities playing out behind Naruto's eyes that he was trying too hard to hide away.

Sasuke hadn't even known that he was gone. 

What would he have done, if he'd lost Naruto without ever knowing that he'd needed to worry at all? 

"What?" Naruto asked after eating close to half the bowl at a truly alarming speed.

"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving for a mission?"

Naruto stopped eating completely, grimacing for a moment before shooting Sasuke a somewhat sheepish look. "I didn't mean to not tell you."

"You forgot? That's what you're going with?" Sasuke knew he sounded like everything he didn't want to be but this felt too ridiculous for him to care. For Naruto to do this, leaving on a mission for a week without a word, when last month when he'd sent a clone back to tell Sasuke about the overnight mission he'd taken that he couldn't remember if he'd told Sasuke about or not didn't make any sense. 

Naruto had told him about that mission. Twice.

Naruto wasn't looking at him at all anymore. "Yes?"

Sasuke suddenly felt years older than Naruto, instead of just a few months. Without a word he turned and started to walk away, exhausted and so done leaving the room felt like the only thing he could do.

"You're not going home, are you?"

He hadn't been planning on it, just going to clean up the small mess in the kitchen out of sight for a moment to breathe. Glancing back over his shoulder Sasuke met Naruto's wide, unsure eyes, and whatever he'd been about to say was forgotten. Sasuke shook his head and walked over to the end of the bed, sitting on the edge near Naruto's feet.

Some of the tension left Naruto's shoulders, and he went back to his meal.

Sasuke watched the corner of his jaw, waiting for words Naruto didn't seem to want to give him. But Sasuke didn't know how to ask again, not when he felt so obvious all over. So he just waited, watching Naruto finish his food and set the tray to the side on his nightstand, looking around at everything in his room that wasn't Sasuke.

"It wasn't as bad as you're thinking." Naruto finally said. "I shouldn't even be hurt like this."

"So why are you?" His voice came out too soft, and Sasuke could only look down at his own hands, lost and knowing it was a lie. "Were they that strong? Did you seriously go out on something this important and not even–"

"No, no, it's not like that. I just–I got distracted." Naruto finally met his eyes, embarrassment there that didn't quite sit right. "It's my own fault."

"But shouldn't you have healed by now?"

Whatever reaction Sasuke had been expecting, a blush spreading over Naruto's face like rapid fire hadn't been it. He looked down and away, mumbling something too quietly for Sasuke to understand.

"What?"

Naruto sighed before looking up. "Me and him are fighting, so he's not healing me right now."

Sasuke bit back his first response, taking in the anxious set to Naruto's hands, the nerves behind his words that Sasuke hadn't heard there in so long. He forced his own hands not to tense up, his voice not to go harsh and judgemental for once. "I thought you two didn't do that anymore."

Naruto let out half a laugh, just barely shaking his head. "Yeah, that makes two of us."

All Sasuke could do was ask. "What happened?"

But Naruto just shook his head, shooting him a quick look that Sasuke didn't know what to do with before turning to look out his window. He sounded weird, tired but not, sad but not, so full of  _ something  _ that felt just outside of Sasuke's reach, something there just for him. "It's an old fight, I thought we were done having it." 

Sasuke didn't know what to do with Naruto being this way, strange and distant. Sasuke had never been the patient one, at least when it came to anything between them. "Are you going to tell me what happened or not?"

"Relax." But Naruto still didn't look over, feeling further away by the moment. "It's nothing really, I'll be healed up again in no time."

Intuition sat like swarming flies beneath his ribs. Sasuke was so tired of only ever being certain in moments like this. "You were fighting about me, weren't you."

Naruto's laugh was sudden and bright, filling up the whole room. It became painfully clear just how dull his eyes had been until that moment when he looked over again. 

"What?" Sasuke couldn't help but ask, embarrassed and for maybe the first time in his life the feeling brought him no shame. It just was, just like they were only ever them, like Naruto was only ever just himself. 

He was smiling that smile that hurt Sasuke's chest, slightly crooked and moments away from falling back into laughter. "Nothing, nothing, I just–it's nothing."

"You're seriously not gonna tell me?" Sasuke couldn't help but ask, petulant like he never let himself be anymore with anyone else.

Naruto's lower lip was still trembling, so close to breaking again. "Nope."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, pointless in the end because he couldn't even keep them away from Naruto. It felt impossible that he would ever get tired of seeing Naruto this way, glowing in simple goodness, but the uncomplicated happiness was gone again far too soon.

Naruto's eyebrows drew together, his voice going distant. "I uh–I talked to Hinata, before I left."

It took a moment for Sasuke to say anything, and even when he did it was nothing at all. "Oh?"

"Yeah." Another sigh that Naruto wasn't supposed to make, tired and strained. "She–I mean I guess we both–decided to end things between us."

Sasuke tried to blink away the ringing in his ears, the dull throb beneath his chest, the look behind Naruto's eyes that wouldn't turn away from him. Sasuke forced all of it back, and just asked. "Are you okay?"

Naruto shrugged. 

For a long moment all Sasuke could do was look at him, taking in the edges of his sadness, the loneliness that had followed Naruto his entire life that was ignored by close to everyone. Sasuke had ignored it all for so long, everything, himself and Naruto and the agonizing space between them. That same space was back now, just like it always was, holding them at arm's length. Sasuke was tired of ignoring the fact that the distance between them was always the length of his own arm. Reaching out for what felt like that first time Sasuke proved himself right, finding Naruto just as far away as he could touch, and then the rest seemed to happen on its own, like his body knew what he'd wanted all along. 

They had hugged before, but it had never felt like this. Sasuke had never been the one to pull Naruto to him, to be the first one to dip beneath that waterline into harsh, honest waters.

"Sorry," Sasuke said softly against the side of Naruto's head, sunflower hair just barely brushing his lips. Regardless of all his selfish wants, petty jealousies and bitter desires, Sasuke had never wanted this. He could never want this kind of sadness for Naruto, regardless of what it meant for the future.

Naruto didn't respond with words right away, but warm hands met Sasuke's back, holding him firmly in place when Sasuke started to pull away. Sasuke let out a slow, barely restrained breath, and found himself relaxing before he could think to remember that he didn't know how. 

"I'm okay."

That should have been enough for Sasuke to pull away, but he just couldn't seem to make himself move.

For once, maybe even the first time ever, it felt easier for him to stay.

*

Things went back to normal after that, not that Sasuke really knew what that meant for them, if he'd been back for long enough to be able to claim anything as the way it usually was. Still, the new patterns he and Naruto had found for themselves came back like they'd never left at all, and Sasuke knew this was what he was supposed to want. This was what he'd been secretly wishing for, to have all of Naruto's attention again without any lingering guilt over holding it.

But the guilt just wouldn't go away.

Naruto smiled at him and Sasuke festered inside. Naruto threw an arm around his shoulders after a spar, skin too hot and close, and it was all Sasuke could do just to step out from beneath it. Naruto fell asleep on Sasuke's couch after eating too much during dinner, relaxed and loose limbed with his head tilted back like he belonged there, and Sasuke left without a word. He couldn't remember a night his room had ever felt so empty.

Naruto wasn't quite the same either, though he tried so hard to hide it. Sasuke hated more than anything that he couldn't say for certain what it was that had changed, even just to himself. All he knew was that the way Naruto looked at him was different. Not all the time, not even most of the time, but there were moments when Sasuke turned now to find Naruto watching him like he never had before. Sasuke wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen if for himself, over and over and over again.

It wasn't searching, Sasuke knew just what that kind of longing looked like shining out from Naruto's eyes. It wasn't pity, Sasuke felt none of the familiar crackling inside the sight had always brought him before. It wasn't confusion, or fear, or worry; it wasn't anything that Sasuke could come close to defining. Happiness without joy. Sadness without pain. Heartbreak without loss. All Sasuke knew was that he felt weaker to it each time, like a burn he couldn't stop poking, a sore inside his mouth that his tongue couldn't help but run over.

Letting Naruto look at him that way felt bigger than dangerous, like something neither of them could afford to risk now after everything they'd already put each other through. After everything Sasuke had already put them through.

Sasuke hadn't been sure which of them would finally cave and bring it up first, but it being neither of them hadn't even crossed his mind.

"So." Sakura leveled him with a flat look. "Are you ever going to talk to Naruto?"

"I talk to Naruto everyday."

Somehow she looked ever more unimpressed. "Sasuke."

"What do you expect me to say?" Sasuke could hear the nerves that had bled into his voice but knew it was pointless to try and hide them away, especially from her. "It's just Naruto."

"It's not just Naruto, it's you and Naruto." Sakura waited to keep going until Sasuke looked away from the empty park in front of them and back to her, next to him on the old bench. "We both know that's something else entirely."

Sasuke wanted to argue but recognized it for the old want that it was, a reflex more than anything. "He might not–" but even that was too much for him to try and say.

"Sasuke." 

Just his name, but it held so much. Sasuke didn't understand how the both of them managed to do it, when he couldn't seem to put any emotion that he wanted into anything he said anymore. Maybe he never had. "I don't think I can."

"It's just Naruto." Her voice was fond, still tinted with a sadness Sasuke didn't know how to listen to. "I can't imagine anything you could do that would make him turn away from you now."

_ What if it's this,  _ said a rush inside him,  _ what if this is the one thing finally waiting to make him pull away from me? _

"He has no self preservation instincts." Sasuke meant it as a joke, or at the very least something to break the growing tension between them, something normal for him to say. But of course it didn't work.

"If Naruto wants to be with you, it's not–" Sakura broke off, face pinched up in a flash of guilt Sasuke couldn't begin to understand. There was a new weight to her words when she continued. "I used to be one of those people, telling Naruto to give up on you. But now that you're back I can see it, that it wasn't just Naruto chasing after you."

Sasuke was silently begging her not to say it, feeling his eyes go wide and close to pleading as he looked back at her, but he just couldn't bear it. He felt seen in a way he rarely ever had, anxieties buried years ago rising up the back of his throat, itching at the corners of his eyes.

"You two need each other, more than just teammates do."

More than anything Sasuke wished he could argue with her about any of it, but the will to push back was just gone, like his ability to do so had never been there at all. Or maybe it was just undeniable now, and Sasuke was tired of painting himself as the fool. He looked out at the empty park again, at the other vacant benches, the flowers with no one else there to enjoy them. 

Naruto had bought him a cactus and put it in Sasuke's kitchen windowsill. He always left his dirty dishes in the sink. There was even a growing collection of his shirts in Sasuke's top drawer, a fact Sasuke could hardly touch in his mind each morning when he pulled it open to get ready. Every time he thought about moving them to his bottom drawer, half empty and hardly used, but they were still there, mixed in with all of Sasuke's most well worn things.

Sasuke's apartment hadn't truly looked empty in weeks.

"Yeah," he finally said, once even he knew the silence had gone on for too long. It was such a pointless word, one that had lost its real meaning to become just a placeholder sound in conversations, but base acknowledgement was all Sasuke had to give right now. Acknowledgement was a bigger impossibility than most people realized, and for him it had always felt like something so much bigger than that. For years of his life it had been a fake, far off thing, another point on the horizon he was never meant to reach.

Sakura reached out her hand, giving his own a short squeeze before moving it back to her lap. She smiled, and then looked out at the empty park.

Sasuke thought about her empty room and sad eyes, and then let his finally move away. They sat together in a silence that felt like a question and its answer all on its own, and Sasuke wondered. 

Maybe it was time for him to finally try listening to her for once.

*

Sasuke didn’t mean to keep putting it off, but every time he went to see Naruto it just didn’t feel like the right time. After training didn’t work, the idea of telling Naruto about anything resembling his emotions when they'd both just been trying to beat each other up felt off. During a mission was out of the question. Out to eat felt too public. Inside Naruto's apartment felt too presumptuous, but inside his own felt like too much of everything. 

He'd started baking again instead, much to Naruto's bewildered excitement. Today it was a cake. Sasuke was already trying to figure out how to get Naruto to take the entire thing home with him without telling him to. The entire thing would end up being too sweet for Sasuke to enjoy more than a small piece. Such a pointless thing for him to make really, yet it didn't feel unimportant at all, in fact it felt anything but.

Naruto was crouched down before the oven, staring inside the small window like a child. But Naruto had probably never done this as a child. "Is it for your birthday?"

Sasuke paused in mixing the frosting, his mind stalling. He looked down and over at Naruto, letting the obvious question show on his face.

"The day after tomorrow?" Naruto's smile flickered, and then he pushed himself up from in front of the oven. His eyes wouldn't leave Sasuke's face, happy and sad all at once. "Sasuke, tell me you didn't forget your own birthday."

Sasuke turned around, picking back up the frosting bowl and stirring again. The back of his neck was burning, and when Sasuke looked down he could hardly see the bowl in his hands, but he knew he couldn't blink. He didn't understand why he felt this way. He couldn't believe he'd lost track so thoroughly. He couldn't remember ever even telling Naruto when his birthday was, but there was so much he couldn't remember now. Maybe he had. Maybe Naruto just knew.

Naruto started laughing, a sound that from anyone else right now would have had Sasuke lashing out, but Naruto didn't have an intentionally cruel bone in his body. If anything the sound eased some of the tension from his shoulders, Sasuke's next breath coming that much easier. Naruto's laugh was never a bad thing when it sounded that way, and it meant he didn't realize how irrationally affected Sasuke was by all of this.

"You'd be lost without me huh, just wandering the earth, not even sure how old you were." Naruto's tone was light, words said around the last remnants of his laughter. 

There was a long pause and then the oven beeped, finally giving Sasuke something to do with his hands, a distraction to focus on as he pulled out the pans and turned off the timer, getting out the rack for them to cool on. He could feel Naruto watching him the entire time.

Finally, when Sasuke didn't know how to stand it anymore, he turned. Naruto looked just the way Sasuke had known he would, that expression that was starting to keep Sasuke up at night staring back at him. He couldn't stand being silent anymore. "I always know how old I am. I just remember how much older I am than you."

Naruto rolled his eyes, so fond Sasuke's jaw ached. "It's only a few months, don't try and pull any elder wisdom on me."

Now would have been such a perfect moment to try, close together and alone, something near intimate in the air between them. But Sasuke couldn't change who he was, so he just turned back to the pans, flipping the cakes out and onto the cooling rack. Then he watched them, feeling Naruto's eyes on him just the same.

"You know, I was kind of surprised that you had so many opinions about me and Hinata."

Sasuke moved to grip the edge of the counter with his hand hidden from Naruto's view, feeling his palms begin to sweat. 

"You've never dated anyone, have you?"

It was a pointless question and they both knew it. Sasuke barely shook his head before turning it away to look at the wall opposite Naruto, giving up on trying to pretend he didn't want to hide from whatever this conversation was turning into. Whatever it was, Sasuke knew he wasn't ready for it. 

Naruto was already so suffocating, getting gently rejected by him would probably feel bigger than unbearable.

"So why then?" Naruto's voice had shifted, suddenly unsure and trying desperately to hide it. "It's not like you to talk about something like that."

Sasuke turned before he could remember why he wasn't, and then it was too late. He couldn't do a thing when Naruto was looking at him like that. "What do you mean?"

"Dating, relationships." Naruto's shrug was somehow loose and stiff at the same time, one side of his smile higher than the other. On anyone else it would have been an off smirk, but Sasuke could see it for what it really was, an awkward smile Naruto couldn't bring himself to drop from his face. "I didn't think you cared about anything like that."

It felt like there was too much he could say, words building up inside of him faster than Sasuke could think. Naruto was always so obvious, never able to hide a thing from his expression when it was just the two of them like this, but Sasuke didn't know how to see it right now. Letting out a slow breath Sasuke looked down at the kitchen counter. "I don't really, but it was you this time, so."

Naruto took a step closer, so near Sasuke could see his foot next to his own down in the corner of his eye. "What does that mean?"

Sasuke turned with a glare, trying to ignore how hot he felt all over, how near Naruto was. "It means what it means. Why are you even asking me this? I already told you what I thought, and you two broke up awhile ago."

Naruto looked too focused, too intent, too everything. "I just want to know."

"I don't care what–" But he couldn't even say it, so instead Sasuke just rolled his eyes as he let out an irritated sigh, moving to act like he was going to start icing the cake even though it was still too hot to start. "I don't want to talk about this."

"Talk about what? You haven't even really said anything."

"Exactly."

"Hey." Naruto's voice went too soft all at once, and then his hand was on Sasuke's elbow, stilling his movements. "Just leave it for a minute." 

"I need to–"

"Sasuke."

Sasuke set the frosting down and turned to glare at Naruto again, even if it didn't feel like he was glaring at all. "What? Just ask whatever it is and stop looking at me like that."

He told himself he was ready, that he could handle anything that Naruto could say to him now. Sasuke had gone over this moment in his mind so many times, it felt impossible that there was a version of it that he hadn't already prepared for. 

But Naruto just let out a sheepish laugh, dropping Sasuke's elbow as he moved to scratch at the back of his head, the ultimate sign of his nerves. "I was gonna ask you the same thing, basically."

For a moment Sasuke couldn't speak, and when he did it wasn't a question. "What."

"You just–" Naruto gestured between them, mouth opening only to close again. He looked something close to lost, openly nervous like he so rarely was now. "It just looks like you've had something you've wanted to say lately."

Sasuke almost wanted to laugh. It felt impossible that he could remember how, but his mouth felt close to it all the same. Meeting Naruto's eyes again, Sasuke decided to just give in. Whatever happened, happened. It was just Naruto. "I guess I thought you wouldn't notice."

Naruto's eyes widened just slightly, darting all over Sasuke's face. 

"I–" Sasuke's throat went tight. "I'm–" Now too dry, even as his eyes went too wet. His hands kept wanting to tremble, just like his heart beneath his chest. The words just weren't there.

Maybe he just couldn't say them.

Maybe he didn't deserve to now.

Naruto took that last step needed to bring them too close, leaning down until Sasuke had no choice but to meet his eye again. "It's just me, what is it?"

Of all the ways Sasuke had imagined this going, the version where he cried always felt like the worst one. The reality of it wasn't too far off. 

For all the ways Naruto knew how to comfort someone, tears always turned him awkward and uneasy. Sasuke had seen it for years, hands always unsure of what to do, where to touch, stumbling through sentences that never ended up meaning much of anything. Naruto could normally hardly even keep looking at the person, shifting where he stood, clearly just waiting for it all to be over. For a moment that was exactly what Sasuke saw looking back at him, Naruto's eyebrows pinching together as nerves washed over his face. 

But then it was gone, and Naruto still wasn't turning away. His eyes went so soft Sasuke had to drop his own, but that turned out to be a mistake too, seeing the moment Naruto reached out between them, nudging at Sasuke's hand until he could curl two fingers around Sasuke's. It felt impossible that Sasuke would ever have dry eyes again. It should have felt impossible for him to feel this much, but it didn't. With Naruto it never did.

When Sasuke finally managed to start talking the words weren't what he'd expected, but they were something, so he just let them come. 

"I hated this apartment at first, I hated living in it day after day. But after awhile you were over so much I didn't have time to think about why, and it was almost okay. Then you two started dating, and I couldn't ignore it anymore." Naruto squeezed his fingers, thumb just starting to rub the outside edge of Sasuke's. Sasuke wanted to look up, to see the way Naruto was watching him now but he felt frozen, trapped by the weight of his own words. "I wanted you here, with me."

"That makes it sound like you were…" 

Sasuke had to look up then, taking in Naruto's soft expression through wet eyes. They both knew exactly how he sounded, it was exactly how he had felt; completely and totally jealous. "I was."

For a flash Naruto looked stunned, embarrassment taking its place soon after, but that wasn't quite right. There was something in Naruto's eyes that didn't look embarrassed at all, bright and infectious and captivating. "Really?" He asked, like he had to know, like he already knew.

Sasuke couldn't tell if he was breathing anymore. He told himself to nod but even then, he couldn't be sure. It felt like the only thing he could be sure of was the feeling of Naruto's fingers against his own, the sight of the disbelieving smiling slowly pulling over Naruto's mouth. 

"Really?" Naruto said again, voice shaking like he was caught halfway between laughing and crying. "You remember this is me we're talking about, right?"

"Naruto." It was all Sasuke could say for a moment, an answer and another confession all on it's own. It felt like a miracle he said anything at all when Naruto was still so close, looking at Sasuke like he was the answer to every question he'd ever had. "Who else could it ever be?"

The laugh Naruto let out was quiet and small, beautiful and carefree. Naruto's eyes were moving slowly over every corner of Sasuke's face, hand moving so their palms were pressed together, two fingers uncurling so all of them could intertwine, calluses against calluses. Naruto's hand was just slightly bigger than his own, warm against Sasuke's own that were chilled by his near constant nerves.

Naruto was looking at his mouth, and Sasuke didn't know how to believe what he was seeing. Naruto started to lean in and Sasuke could hardly swallow against his dry throat, squeezing Naruto's hand too tightly, exposing everything as his eyes slowly drifted shut without a thought from himself to do so.

Then Naruto kissed him. 

More than anything Sasuke had tried to avoid imagining this moment, but like everything you tried to push away it eventually became impossible for him to ignore. For so long he had only even been able to see it as some desperate flash of a thing, a blink of what could have been that they both would know could never be. Then he'd come home, and the image shifted into something else, something that could have happened a thousand different ways, each one more unlikely than the last.

Somehow Sasuke had never considered this, in his own kitchen with frosting on his pants, hands held together too tightly as Naruto pressed against his mouth too soft. Sasuke's chest ached, lips trembling as he tried to move them, feeling like he'd forgotten how to control every part of himself, lost like he'd never been before. Naruto let out a harsh breath through his nose, shifting against him and suddenly it didn't feel too soft at all anymore, everything that Sasuke had never felt all at once.

When they parted it took Sasuke a moment to realize that heavy breath was his own, lips tingling with a blush burning at the tips of his ears. Naruto's face broke out into a smile so wide it almost hurt to look at it, the sight sending Sasuke's thoughts spiraling, years of longing and admiration simmering just beneath the surface.

"I can't believe it." Naruto laughed, closer to a sigh, biting his bottom lip but his smile refused to let up. "How did I manage to miss this for so long?"

Slowly realizing that he could now, Sasuke reached up with the hand not held in Naruto's and laid it on Naruto's chest, right over his heart. He could hardly recognize the sound of his own voice, thawed out and needy all over. "Miss what?"

Naruto kissed the corner of his mouth, the side of his nose, the still damp skin just below his eye. "You."

Sasuke did laugh then, for the first time in he couldn't say how long. It felt unnatural on his face, and the way it made his chest expand sat uncomfortably on his fame, but Naruto looked something close to mystified. Sasuke realized he wasn't even sure what he looked like smiling this way anymore, in the moment after realizing just how right it was for Naruto to know first. He wanted Naruto to have all the best parts of him before anyone could touch them, even himself. "You're ridiculous." 

Naruto moved a hand to his jaw, thumb just touching the corner of Sasuke's mouth. Sasuke had never seen him look so relaxed, so happy, so full of everything that had always been missing between them. Sasuke couldn't help but wonder how he'd willed himself to miss it too, how he'd denied himself this for years when Naruto had always been right there, reaching out for him.

"Let's get married."

Sasuke blinked. 

Then he blinked again.

Burning up all over Sasuke knocked Naruto's hand away from his face, voice coming out close to strangled. " _ What?  _ Naruto, be serious for once in your life."

Naruto had the nerve to pout. "I am being serious Sasuke, think about it, it makes sense!"

Sasuke felt like he'd tripped and hit his head, or maybe woken up in an alternate timeline. His voice came out nowhere near calm, fractured and reaching octaves he never touched. "How does it make sense?"

Something determined came over Naruto's face and Sasuke took a step back before he could think, hitting the kitchen counter and realizing he had nowhere to go. Naruto took another step closer, taking back the hand Sasuke had pulled away in his panic. His eyes were clear like the summer sky from a childhood memory, like a dream for warmer days in the dead of winter. "We could be each other's family."

Tears blurred Naruto before him again, but this time Naruto's hand was there, his thumb just barely touching skin as he wiped away each of Sasuke's tears as they fell. 

"I love you." Naruto's voice was so sure, just like his hand on Sasuke's face, just like the never wavering path he'd run towards Sasuke their entire lives. "You love me too, don't you?"

Somehow, against every one of his long held awful instincts, Sasuke nodded. 

Naruto's smile then was close to too much, and the feeling of it pressed against Sasuke's mouth was more than he knew how to take. His hand on Naruto's chest moved up to the back of his neck, clinging to Naruto with everything he couldn't say. It felt like he was floating in free fall, drowning in the sky, dreaming when he was undeniably awake. 

Sasuke pulled back just enough to take Naruto in, the corner of his smile, the curve of his nose, the warmth of his eyes that had every reason to look cold but somehow never did. He could have had anyone, as beautiful and impossible as he was. Naruto had proven time and time again that he could reach any point he wanted to touch, any goal he dared to set, any wish he thought to turn into a reality.

And now he wanted this, for them to be an us, always. 

Family.

"Again," Sasuke said softly, hoping it would be enough.

Naruto's next breath shook it's way out of him, nerves just touching his eyes for the first time. "I love you."

Sasuke just kept looking at him, waiting, dreading, wishing more than anything.

Recognition flashed behind Naruto's eyes, deeper color touching his cheeks. He leaned in again, his kiss short and quick until Sasuke held him there, unable to stop himself from lingering in the feeling of it. Being wanted this way felt better than he'd dared to imagine it would, just like everything about having Naruto by his side again did.

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered against his jaw, voice warm and so in love Sasuke couldn't help the way he curled into Naruto all over, "I don't care when, if it's tomorrow or when we're fifty, just say you will someday. Just say it can be us, always."

Everything in him wanted to lean in, hide his burning face away against the side of Naruto's neck but an even bigger part of him didn't. This was his life, for once not happening to him but happening with him, because of him, together with what he wanted for the first time. Sasuke looked right back at Naruto, Naruto who should have been anywhere but here in his too-small kitchen, Naruto who they both knew didn't want to be anywhere else. Maybe for once it could be this easy. 

Maybe for once life was giving him what he wanted and needed, all at once.

Sasuke sighed, trying to memorize the feeling of Naruto's hair between his fingers. "Maybe not quite fifty."

Naruto had him in his arms in an instant, laughing in Sasuke's ear as his hands held Sasuke's back so tight the feeling was near an ache. Sasuke held Naruto back just as urgently, wanting to feel every moment of this, to know without a doubt that it was true, that it was real. 

Sasuke couldn't remember a time he'd felt so alive, another moment that had mattered this much without a horribly painful aftertaste to go with it.

It felt like bitterness couldn't touch him here, just as long as Naruto kept holding him this way.

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered against his ear, warm and delighted, shaking in undisguised joy. "I'm so–tell me you're this happy too."

"More," Sasuke somehow managed to say, tingling all over, somewhere passed overwhelmed into a kind of feeling he'd never imagined before, beyond any word he could find inside himself.

"Impossible. I don't think anyone has ever been this happy."

Sasuke pulled back just enough to meet Naruto's eyes. "You're a fool," he said simply, for maybe the first time in his life letting everything show on his face without trying to fight it away. "I love you."

And then Naruto was proving them both wrong, kissing him again until they were both convinced that this was it, the moment no one else in the world could ever hope to match; pure unfiltered happiness.

But maybe they were both just in love.

Maybe there was no real difference at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love writing them instantly uhauling it what can I say


End file.
